LONDONIUM

This past week was my first trip to London since 2005. Don't get me wrong, London is still one of my Top 3 cities in the world, but I am over it. I lived in London from February - September 2003. (Historical footnote, the U.S. invaded Iraq and started Gulf War II in March until April 2003. Iraq, 1 month to conquer and it will take over 15 years to rebuilt. Afganistan will take at least 20 years to fix, but I digress.....).

The Summer of 2003 was the best summer I have had since Camp Hale. (Summer 2008 was another summer highlight, but I'll save that for another blog post). That summer in London was amazing. The sequel to the Matrix was opening, there was a heatwave in Europe, the gay dance club Heaven was in its glory days, I travelled to Rome, Dubai, Bristol, Edinburgh and Dublin that summer. It was my first London Pride. And all summer long, I fell in love with the City of London in the process. Leaving London, the job, and my friends was hard. And I tried to get back there for work, but I got pulled into the Miami orbit instead. Reflecting on it now, on this trip, Miami was definitely the better city to live in for me.

And I had a blast this past week in London. Priscilla Queen of the Desert was hilarious: http://www.priscillathemusical.com/ I had always wanted to see La Cax Au Folles and this West End production, while dated, did not disappoint. (Priscilla was the better show. It should be a big hit when it transfers to Broadway).

I went to Clarence House, which is the official residences of Prince Charles, Prince William and Prince Harry. Clarence House was an real eye opener as a home owner. As a residence, I hated it. Except for the original Monet, it looked like an awful place to live. The entire house was a museum. I would have hated to grow up there as a child. The only open part of the house for this tour was the first floor (receiving rooms, a sitting room, a dining room, the hallways). I'm sure William and Harry's actual residences on the second floor would be more modern, but it was still stifling. What was interesting was the prominent photos of Camilla Parker Bowles and not one photo anywhere of Princess Diana. The garden was lovely, if a bit understated. I saw this great exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery (which is a different museum than the National Gallery) called Gay Icons: http://www.npg.org.uk:8080/gayicons/index.htm I went to British Museum for the first time and saw the actual Rosetta Stone. The British Museum has the biggest collection of Roman, Greek, and Egyptian artifacts outside of Rome, Athens, or Cairo (all of who want their national treasures back from the British).

For a city that has not changed much in the last 3000 years, what had changed considerably was the gay scene. In 2003, Heaven was the largest and most popular club, but a scrappy up and coming club called GAY was challenging Heaven's dominance. At the time, GAY had both a bar and the second hottest Friday night in London with top talent - Robbie Williams, McFly, Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue, all doing a half hour set at midnight at the Astoria. Now in 2009, GAY has purchased Heaven and opened it as it's primary club, with their other more loungy club called GAY Late. Kubar, which was this tiny little bar on Charing Cross Road had moved into a much bigger space and is the second most popular gay club in London. Kubar also has a second club. The second Kubar is more loungy, whereas at Kubar Prime, there is a nice little dance floor in the basement.

What's most interesting to me about all of this is gay branding. Only in London have clubs/bars started second bars with the same names in the same city (and within blocks of each other) In the U.S., the only bar I know to have successfully started 2 bars with the same name is Halo (in Miami and Washington D.C.). Others have tried, like Vlada in New York & Miami, but the Miami extension isn't that fun. It's interesting, because gay clubs do have national prominence in the U.S., but really, no gay club has been able to successfully expand into another bar in a different city, although I'm sure several could. SBNY could do it, The Abbey in LA could be a successful brand extension.

Edinburgh, Scotland is another city I really enjoy. This was third and least favorite time attending the Military Tattoo: http://www.edintattoo.co.uk/ Don't get me wrong, the Tattoo is always inpressive, and there really is nothing like it anywhere else in the world, but the Tattoo is morphing more into a "music" experience, while I enjoyed it the first time I saw it as more a military experience. Edinburgh is a very beautiful city.

Overall, I had another great trip to the UK. But if Warner Bros. asked me to move to London in 2003, I would have taken a pay cut to go there. Now, it would take a big pay raise to get me to pack up and move to London in the future.

I'M READY FOR NEW TECHNOLOGY

This recession is really getting me down, and here's why. I want some new technology toys to play with.

One of the benefits of leveraged debt and venture capital is all the money that flows into new ideas, start up companies, and bold, new technologies. Most of them fail, but some of them succeed and making it into the mainstream of consumer lifestyle gadgets. The first decade of the 21st centurys saw the rise of the IPhone and other smartphones, satellite radio, Facebook, eBook Readers, VOD, pocket video cameras, digital music, big screen HDTVs, home theater systems, explosive growth in digital TV channels and programming, and IMAX cinemas, just to name all of my favorites.

While technology marches on, the beat has gotten slower. Sure, there have been some incremental improvements: Google's cloud computing has gained more traction, internet speeds faster, more HD channels, the netbook, electronic downloading of movies onto TV screens, IPTV, and these are interesting technologies but no real out the box, game changing ideas. The last major game changing device was the launch of the IPhone in 2007. Since then, nothing.

Come back venture capital. Technology and the world need you.

A 21st CENTURY LYNCHING

I don't understand why there is even a "debate" in this country over universal healthcare. News Flash! Everyone gets sick eventually, and everyone wants full access to as many doctors as possible to help them get better. Every citizen in this country should be demanding complete and total public access to quality healthcare. The debate should be about what type of universal health care we have, not whether we should or should not have universal healthcare. This is an issue that effects every single American citizen. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue, or a black, or white, or Latino, or Asian, young, old, gay, or straight issue. This effects everyone in the United States who's currently breathing air.

First of all, I don't know why all our senators and representatives are having "town hall" meetings at all. What are they "meeting" about? There are about 5 different version of bills in various stages of readiness in up to 6 different committees in both the House and the Senate. So what are they defending? A provision in the House Finance Committee bill that may or may not make it out of committee or may be dropped in the Senate version of the bill? Why argue over something that isn't even close to being a law? People are arguing over hypotheticals and what if scenarios, so stop wasting your time and breath. And who is going to these town halls? I'm working during the day. I can't say to my boss, "Oh, I'm taking the day off to go to a town hall." I'd get fired and then I wouldn't have health insurance.

Second, Republicans want to stop the Obama train. The man is politically popular and Republicans don't want to hand Obama one more political victory. While I may agree that it is their right to do this, stopping universal healthcare is the wrong issue to do this on. Universal healthcare is only going to be passed with Democratic president. Universal healthcare has never been a Republican issue. Republicans don't want universal healthcare, they won't take on the hospital and insurance industries to get it done and we'll never get universal healthcare with a Republican president.

This is one of those classic political issues where fearmongering is taking over and people are completely misinformed. The citizens of the United States are very angry right now. The economy is in the toilet, a lot of people are jobless and unemployed with no prospects on the horizon. Americans have seen car companies taken over, large banking institutions and Wall Street saved by a taxpayer bailout, and the largest intrusion of the government into the private sector that has even been seen in American history. I understand that people are upset.

Add that onto the fact that deep, deep down inside, many, many people are still fundamentally racist and they just don't want Obama to succeed on this issue. That's why I titled this blog entry a 21st Century Lynching. That's what Republicans are doing, an old fashion "lynching" of this President at the expense of all of the citizens of the country.

But in Biblical terms shooting down universal healthcare is a classic case of biting off your nose to spite your face. Everyone drowns if this ship goes down. You may have healthcare today, lose your job and ***POOF*** your healthcare is gone. You may be healthy today, but find out you have cancer tomorrow. Life turns just like that, on a dime with no notice or warning, and believe me, when it comes to your health, everyone wants access to the best medical care you can get.

The Obama Administration is making many missteps along the way to be sure. The best healthcare is extending Medicare & Medicaid to all citizens while allowing for private insurance. One of the Adminstration's biggest faults is that it should be pushing for a single payment system (like Medicare - duh!). Will public insurance be the best system? No. And it's not the best system in many other countries either. Let me give you an example. A friend of mine in London needed hermia operation. He could get an operation for free through public health insurance, but he had to wait 6 weeks. 6 weeks suffering through a hernia is no fun, but it's better than not being able to get the hermia operation at all. And if you have enough money, or your employment insurance covers it, you get private insurance and you can get your hernia operation next week. Perfect, no, but either with public or private insurance, you get the operation you need. Turns out what you're paying for is the speed at which you receive your treatment.

And I am willing to pay for universal healthcare (side note - notice how no one in the press or publically uses the term "universal" any more. Universal sounds too big to do). That's right, you can raise my tax rate up to 40% on every citizen for everyone to have healthcare. It's worth it.

GUESTS OF GUESTS DO NOT BRING GUESTS

NYC Prep. on Bravo was my favorite show of the summer. Sure, I also loved True Blood, Entourage, and Burn Notice this summer, but nothing came close to NYC Prep. NYC Prep. is a shameless "reality" show based on GOSSIP GIRL (which I also LOVE). In a nut shell, both shows are about wealthy teenagers who attend private high schools in Manhattan and their social lives outside of school. (I guess at 38 what I really want to be is a wealthy teenager in high school living in New York City...hmmm, I don't know wht to make of that).

First of all, parents in middle America would be shocked by this show, and I like that. It's never been harder to be a teenager than it is today. These kids drink, smoke, swear, have sex, hook up, go on dates, make up and breaking up, are constantly texting, IMing, using their IPods, shopping at the most expensive stores in New York City, planning charity functions, renting penthouse suites in luxury hotels, and trying to get into college or move forward from their high school years.

What I really like about the show is it reminds me of my own teenage years. These kids make the same mistakes that every other teenager makes. They all give each other advice, whether asked for or not. The advice is never heeded and always ends in disaster for all the characters (people? cast? I'm not sure what to call them....). But each cast member is endearing in their own way.

PC is the resident gay who hasn't yet come out and is developing a pretty serious drug & alcohol problem. Jessy is in such a hurry to be an adult, she has long since lost any aspect of the joy of being a kid. Camille is a know it all who really doesn't know anything. Kelli thinks she's going to be a star, but she's not. And Taylor is just trying to make it through "public school" with so much on her plate (studying & homework, gymastics, dance, and a boyfriend) that she's falling behind in her grades.

And my favorite cast member is Sebastian. Sebastian is a player in very sense of the word. Sebastian brings girls out to French restaurants so he can speak French in front of them and impress them into bed. He goes out with a lot of girls on dates, and while pretty successful, still makes a lot of rookie errors. But he's honing his craft and you can see by the time he's a senior in college he'll have the ladies eating out the palm of his hand.

The most interesting part of the show for me is when they are in "the confessional chair" telling their side of the conversation that just went on. It's priceless. But if you want to get insight into what the modern world is like for today's teenagers living in New York City, this is as close as you can get. The quote of the blog comes from Jessy, who was berating PC for bringing an uninvited entourage to the fashion show she was working on during Fashion Week. See what I mean by crazy?

DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS

After spending a weekend in Dallas last March and then this past weekend in Austin, I can honestly say I don't get what the big deal is about Texas.

Dallas was nice, but it seemed like a sleepy city and sort of had an old money feel to it. I liked Dallas, but 1 weekend there was enough for me. It was a good time. The gay scene is small, there are a couple of cool buildings like the Bank of America building. Downtown Dallas is dominated by the energy (Read - oil) companies, Exxon Mobil has several sculptures and buildings named for the company, including a Pegasus statue.

I was really excited about visiting Austin. Austin has really come up in the American urban scene as a fast growing, young city. It hosts 2 very successful music festivals, South By Southwest (SXSW) and Austin City Limits. The very large University of Texas is right there. Everything I heard about Austin was true. It was a very young city that really came alive at night. Austin has a vibrant downtown, again, a couple of cool buildings, but still was a sleepy city. Austin is like a little patch of blue in what is clearly the reddest of states. Austinites really like their city. They feel it's the best city in the state, very similar to what San Franciscans feel about their city. And it is a young city. The gay scene is bigger than Dallas, but it still has a very small town feel to it. (As an aside, I had a GREAT weekend in Austin, but that had everything to do with the company and almost nothing to do with the city).

The feeling I got from both cities is that Austin or Dallas is where you go if you're from Texas, but you don't want to leave Texas. The state itself is HUGE. I had to drive across Texas on my way to California when I drove across the country, and it's like driving up Florida....it takes forever. Both cities were nice cities in and of themselves, but my Texas city visits are over. The only other city I wanted to visit in Texas was Houston, but I hear from other people that Houston is disappointing.

The next American cities I want to visit are Seattle and Portland. I still have to visit San Francisco to visit friends now that I'm back on the West Coast. And of course, the final East Coast city I want to visit is Philadelphia.

Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QltlctqfY4E

THE 80'S JUST DIED TODAY

Despite the untimely and very sad passings this year of Michael Jackson, Bea Arthur, Walter Chronkite, Dom Deluise, Farrah Fawcett, Nathasha Richardson, Ricardo Monotalban, and Ron Silver, the saddest death of all for me has to be the death today of John Hughes.

I know, who?

For his time (the 80's and early 90's), John Hughes was a very famous screenwriter and film director who's most successful film was Macaulay Culkin's Home Alone (but that film was trash, a good kid empowerment film, but trash nonetheless). I remember John Hughes from my 2 favorite 1980's film of all time, The Breakfast Club and the less successful, but even funnier and better written film, Sixteen Candles (with Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall in both casts). But he also wrote and/or directed, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Curly Sue, and Uncle Buck (John Candy's final film).

I distinctly remember seeing both The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles in the 1980's and both films made me laugh out loud and cry. They were both amazing films for their time. It was actually from those John Hughes films and others like St. Elmo's Fire that created the Hollywood's party and drug fueled "Brat Pack" (Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Rob Lowe, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall) of the 1980's. John Hughes did what only 1 other writer I know of has ever done, and that's successful capture on film the way teenagers actually talked and thought. This was no small achievement for a older man from the MidWest. And it began Hollywood obession with the youth market. Prior to John Hughes films of the 1980's, teenagers were not specifically targeted in films. But John Hughes' films changed all that.

I would like to say a little prayer for Mr. Hughes. His films had an enormous impact on my life and definitely shaped my career view of wanting to work in an industry that produced such well written and timely films. And I have to say, I have the DVD's of both films, and even though they are classically "stuck" in the 1980's, his films are just as relevant to the problems every teenager faces, even in the 21st century. And that's the real test of any film. Of course you can speak to the time and the generation when the film was made, but how does it play in the next decade, or the decade after that? Specifically, The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles still make me laugh and cry today.

Below is the final voice over from The Breakfast Club:

"Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us. In the simpliest terms, in the most convenient definitions, what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours - The Breakfast Club"

Rest in Peace Mr. Hughes.

UPDATE: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/fashion/17obits.html

Rest In Peace Patrick Swayze. I loved you in The Outsiders and Dirty Dancing.

AND THEN THERE WERE 2.....

The biggest news of last week had to be Yahoo selling its Search business to Microsoft. That now leaves Microsoft's Bing and Google to fight it out for search. Poor Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is going to sell off the other crown jewels of Yahoo (Music, Sports, etc.) in what will basically amount to a 1980's style LBO. After a great decade long run, Yahoo is soon to join AOL in the internet history books of failed companies.

1. I need to revise my first blog about Microsoft's Bing versus Google. I am actually using Bing, but only for travel searches. Their flight predictor and ease of booking travel is really taking over my travel needs from Expedia.

2. Steve Ballmer proved himself a worthy successor to Bill Gates recently abdicated Microsoft throne. After wanting to overpay for Yahoo with it's initial $45 billion bid for the whole company, all Microsoft really needed was the Search business, which it got for a song. Definitely the best business deal of any company in the last 5 years.

Which gets us right back to Google. Google Chief Eric Schmidt just quit the Apple Board. Given the long simmering tensions and business overlaps, this resignation was a long time coming. Apple also finally has a competitive threat from the Palm Pre. Apple recently blocked Pre phones from having access to ITunes. But don't count Apple out yet....Mark my words, and you heard it here first......drum roll please.....

Apple is releasing a new phone next year. Not a next generation (like the 3GS), but whole new phone. Apple must have watched in horror as it new competitiors - LG, Motorola, Blackberry all rolled out IPhone clones. Nothing to do for the Apple design engineers but to come up with a new phone altogether. Mind you, I could be wrong, but I think we'll see a whole new IPhone come July 2010.